Lotus team principal Eric Boullier says the team will maintain its title challenge despite two poor race weekends in Canada and Monaco.

Both races only yielded 3 points for the team as Kimi Raikkonen finished tenth in Monaco and ninth in Canada, while Romain Grosjean failed to score. While Lotus has slipped to fourth in the constructors' championship as a result, Boullier says the results are just a blip and not a sign of any diminishing competitiveness.

"We have lost positions, so we have to work hard to keep the pace because the car is competitive, the team is competitive and there is no reason we cannot be back and fighting for podiums," Boullier is quoted by Sky Sports.

"We didn't have five podiums at the start of the season just by chance. It is because the package is competitive - we may struggle sometimes on some tracks, but we know this know and we have to work on this now to avoid this happening again this season on low-energy tracks. We have to make a step forward - we have some developments coming for Silverstone, so that should help to close the gap to the leaders."

Having been just four points off the championship lead after the Spanish Grand Prix, the recent poor results have left Kimi Raikkonen 44 points behind championship leader Sebastian Vettel and dropped him to third place behind Fernando Alonso.